Level Up Your Sound System

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Speaker 12 Tracy Chapman Fast Car is generally regarded by audio scientists who have proven this in testing as the best song for evaluating audio equipment.

Speaker 13 I'm Christine Zeer-Clissette.

Speaker 12 I'm Kyra Blackwell.

Speaker 14 I'm Rosie Guerin. And you're listening to The Wirecutter Show.

Speaker 15 This episode is called Level Up Your Sound System.

Speaker 14 Hey, team. Hey, hi.
I've been shopping. For?

Speaker 14 Shopping. No, it is.

Speaker 14 I have to say, since starting to work here, I think I have shopped less, but I've actually, I've been shopping recently for a new speaker setup in my apartment.

Speaker 13 Tell us more.

Speaker 14 You know, I'm a big, I'm indoctrinating my children in the sense that like we dance as often as possible. We dance through the decades, if not evening dance parties, certainly weekly.

Speaker 14 Their vibes are great. However, we only have one kind of main speaker in our living space.
And so, I've been thinking about maybe Sonos or maybe some kind of connected system.

Speaker 13 Don't do the Sonos.

Speaker 12 Christina.

Speaker 12 Don't be suckered into it.

Speaker 13 I just find it kind of problematic.

Speaker 14 Well, that's the thing. I'm kind of like, I don't quite know what my options are.
And I know that Wirecutter has done a lot of coverage on speakers.

Speaker 14 And I would like like something great something that like is gonna sound great in our space but I also really don't want to spend that much money but you don't have to no I actually we did we bought some speakers this year and we got some for under 200 it was really great a paired set

Speaker 13 but yeah we kind of had gone through this similar situation Rosie where we had like something in our living room something in our kitchen nothing connected and it was like kind of annoying right like you want to be able to turn on the music and have it like pumping right yeah we have I've like I cobbled together or I've collected maybe is a better way to put it, like these little Bluetooth speakers that I can sort of put around the house, but it's time for an upgrade.

Speaker 13 Yeah. There's just so many options.
And sometimes you need a guide, right?

Speaker 13 And we do have a guide here at Wirecutter, not just like a written guide with recommendations, but a physical person who can actually walk human being

Speaker 13 in our little journey through speaker world. So we're going to have Brent Butterworth on the show today.
He is our senior writer who covers audio devices.

Speaker 13 and he has literally decades of experience testing speakers specifically and all kinds of audio equipment. And he's also a musician.
So you know he has that very high bar for good audio.

Speaker 13 And I think what's lovely about this episode today is he has some really great advice about how to find great speakers that won't cost you a lot.

Speaker 15 Or almost free things that you can do to kind of upgrade the speaker system that you already have.

Speaker 13 That's right. So if you've got like a couple Bluetooth speakers hanging out in your house, he can kind of like give you some hot tips for how to make them better.

Speaker 15 Yeah, I'm really excited to talk to Brent.

Speaker 13 So after the break, we will chat with Brent.

Speaker 12 We'll be right back.

Speaker 1 The Wirecutter Show is supported by Rocket Mortgage.

Speaker 3 Your home is an active investment, not a passive one.

Speaker 4 And with Rocket Mortgage, you can put your home equity to work right away. When you unlock your home equity, you unlock new doors for your family.

Speaker 7 Renovations, extensions, even buying your next property.

Speaker 9 Get started today with smarter tools and guidance from real mortgage experts.

Speaker 2 Find out how at rocketmortgage.com.

Speaker 10 Rocket Mortgage LLC, licensed in 50 states, NMLS Consumer Access.org, 3030.

Speaker 16 Wayfair loves fall. The crisp air, the cool nights, and of course, the seasonal lattes.
And as your trusted destination for all things home, Wayfair's got everything you need to cozify your space.

Speaker 16 From comfy recliners to warm bedding and autumn decor. Wayfair even has espresso makers, so you can make that latte at home.

Speaker 6 You know the one.

Speaker 16 Head to Wayfair.com today to shop curated collections of easy, affordable fall updates. That's w-a-y-f-a-ir-r.com.
Wayfair, every style, every home.

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Speaker 2 Chapter one. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 Part one.

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Oh, I wish you were here to see them.

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Speaker 12 Welcome back.

Speaker 15 With us now is Brent Butterworth, who's a senior staff writer covering audio devices, musical instruments, and recording gear for Wirecutter.

Speaker 15 Brent's been reviewing audio gear since the 90s, and he's worked as a testing consultant for some of the world's largest audio companies.

Speaker 15 He's a huge music fan who plays upright bass, ukulele, guitar, and records some of his own music.

Speaker 12 Brent, welcome. Thank you.
It's so nice to be here.

Speaker 13 Brent, before we jump in, I want you to tell us a little bit about how you test speakers. Paint us a picture of how you do this.

Speaker 12 As much as possible. I think the sort of standard procedure that we do, that me and Lauren Dragon, who's our headphone editor, do, is we get in as many products as we can.

Speaker 12 We give them a listen and weed out the ones that we know people aren't. going to like.
I mean, because there's going to be some duds.

Speaker 13 There's always duds.

Speaker 12 Some poor products that just aren't going to make it. And then we narrow it it down and then we bring in listeners and get second opinions because people have different opinions about audio, you know?

Speaker 15 It's very subjective. Yeah.

Speaker 12 Yeah. One of the really key things is it's good if you have, if it's not people that are really super hardcore audio people, if you have what they call in scientific testing, a low anchor.

Speaker 12 And that's one that, can I say, sucks? Yeah, I would say that. Where people can go, oh, okay, that one's bad.
So at least I know that one's bad.

Speaker 12 And then they kind of relax and they can judge the rest rest of them.

Speaker 14 So what are you asking your listening panel to look for, Brent?

Speaker 12 The key thing I think for most people that's the easiest to evaluate is voice quality because we listen to voices all day long,

Speaker 12 every day. You know, does the singer sound natural or do they sound excessively boomy or do they sound excessively, you know, sibilant or whatever?

Speaker 12 That's what gets people comfortable is if they can listen to the voice, then they can start listening to the instruments.

Speaker 12 And then, you know, if they're more into audio, like if they're musicians, I can start to ask them about distortion. And sometimes they'll bring that up.

Speaker 12 And distortion is when things start to sound unnatural, like,

Speaker 12 you know, we've all heard that. If you hear like really cheap little speakers and things like that, you know, the classic example is the drive-through speaker at, you know, Taco Bell or wherever.

Speaker 12 Where it sounds like it's underwater. I'm not thinking on Taco Bell.
They're pretty much all bad.

Speaker 14 Are you often going to get distortion at louder volume?

Speaker 12 Almost always, yeah.

Speaker 14 So, are you cranking these speakers up when you're testing?

Speaker 12 I do both. I actually crank them all up.

Speaker 12 I have a, there's a ZZ top track that was produced by Rick Rubin, who's notorious for really loud recordings, that I play and I measure them with a sound level meter, and I crank them up as loud as they'll go, and I measure that sound level.

Speaker 12 And then for my listening test, though, I usually bring it down to a kind of normal level.

Speaker 12 Like, you know, yesterday we were just testing record players at Wirecutter, you know, turntables with built-in speakers.

Speaker 12 And we started with everything at match levels and, you know, normal, moderate listening levels. And we did all that, but then we turned everything up full blast to see what it would do.

Speaker 12 And that changed some people's minds because some of these things would play really loud and some of them wouldn't.

Speaker 15 I got to sit in on your record player testing yesterday, which was really fun. I didn't know that you were doing that.
And I was just in the office, which is great. And you played Beyonce.

Speaker 15 You played Led Zeppelin. Yeah.
And who was the last? It was a country singer. It was Steve Earle.
Steve Earle. And it was all amazing.

Speaker 15 You really could hear the difference in the sound qualities, especially based on the genre of music. We were wondering if you have a favorite song to play when you're testing speakers.

Speaker 12 Tracy Chapman Fast Car is generally regarded by audio scientists who have proven this in testing as the best song for evaluating audio equipment.

Speaker 15 Okay, so I went to go buy my stereo system that I have now. He only played Bohemian Rhapsody because he said the same thing.

Speaker 15 He was like, this is the best song to listen to if you're testing the quality of speakers.

Speaker 12 It's not.

Speaker 12 Great song.

Speaker 12 Not so great for testing speakers.

Speaker 13 Well, what is it about this Tracy Chapman song that makes it so awesome?

Speaker 12 The more the song sort of fills up the frequency band, the better it is.

Speaker 12 So it has some bass in it, you know, something like bass guitar, and then it has acoustic guitar, which is real kind of a lot of high frequency and delicate.

Speaker 12 And you can hear, if the acoustic guitar sounds bad, you know, it'll sound muffled, or it'll sound kind of grating, or somewhere in between.

Speaker 12 And then you can hear her voice, and the way her voice is recorded on that is really clear.

Speaker 12 But a lot of speakers start to make it sound kind of distant or kind of a little bit like she's singing in a cardboard box or something like that.

Speaker 12 So I put that on with a speaker, and it's just like, nope. Or maybe I get a $30 speaker.
I'm like, oh, oh, it's a good speaker. You know, you can tell so much.

Speaker 12 And once you get used to doing this, you can tell so so much in about 30 seconds.

Speaker 14 All right, so Brent, I'm guessing the majority of people in your professional life are deep into the topic of audio. This episode is not necessarily going to be for them.

Speaker 14 Today is for the curious novice.

Speaker 14 So those of us kind of looking to take our indoor or outdoor audio setup to the next level, ideally without breaking the bank if i come to you for advice what questions are you going to ask me in order to lead me in the right direction before i make a purchase i usually ask how much money they want to spend then i can you know some people are like you know no more than thirty dollars

Speaker 12 okay i know where i'm at with that a lot of people are just like you know whatever i have to to get good sound and i start to ask them what kind of music they'd listen to because some kind of music if they're you know jazz and classical fans they don't need deep bass right?

Speaker 12 Um, they can get by with some fairly small speakers. If they're listening to a lot of uh hip-hop or EDM or something, they need something with more bass.

Speaker 12 Otherwise, some of the music is just going to disappear completely. And then, where are they going to put the speakers? Are they going to put it in a bedroom?

Speaker 12 Are they going to put it in a big giant living room? Do they want to have dinner parties? Do they want to have, I mean, people sometimes have

Speaker 12 I can't conceive of this, but sometimes people have dance parties in their homes. Oh, hell yeah.

Speaker 13 Yeah, why is that so inconceivable?

Speaker 12 Weekly. We sit at home and close our eyes and listen very intently and seriously.
But, you know, it depends on,

Speaker 12 you know, do they want to use it outside? A lot of people want to use their stuff outside, in which case it probably needs to be waterproof to some degree.

Speaker 12 I usually just start talking to them about what they're going to do with the speaker.

Speaker 14 If you're thinking about sound systems then,

Speaker 14 what are the categories that are available?

Speaker 12 Okay, the big one, I think, for most people nowadays is a wireless speaker, and that can be a Bluetooth speaker.

Speaker 12 You know, it can be anything from the little things you buy for, you know, $20 up to about $1,500.

Speaker 12 But usually they're small and they're portable and they're waterproof to some degree. And you hook them up to your phone and you play whatever.
And some of them sound great and some of them don't.

Speaker 12 The next step up from there is going to be probably a pair of stereo speakers, which could be like what we call computer speakers that you put on your desktop or maybe on a bookshelf or something.

Speaker 12 And they're pretty small, but you know, a lot of them sound really, really good. Then you go up to what we call bookshelf speakers, which is a bigger,

Speaker 12 probably want to put them on a stand or something because a lot of them are kind of big. And that's when you start to really get into serious, high-quality sound.

Speaker 12 And a lot of the bookshelf speakers for,

Speaker 12 we have a pair in there for 400 bucks. It's been a top pick for probably five years.
And, oh, they sound so good.

Speaker 12 They're just really, really, it's, you'd have to really spend a lot of money to beat them.

Speaker 13 And these bookcase speakers and the computer speakers, these are generally ones that are wired, right? Like you're going to plug them in. They'll have a wire coming out of them.

Speaker 13 Or are there ones like that that are also kind of portable and you can move them around without being plugged in?

Speaker 12 Yeah, they're usually wired. You plug them into the wall.
You Bluetooth into them. You Wi-Fi into them.
Some of them you can hook up a record player. Some of them you can hook your TV to them.

Speaker 12 All sorts of stuff.

Speaker 15 What is the difference, in your opinion, between a great Bluetooth speaker and a bad one?

Speaker 12 The fundamental thing is you put it on with Tracy Chapman Fast Car and it sounds good. So it's the voice clarity.
And a lot of them, they don't have that.

Speaker 12 Between you and the speaker is like a lot of plastic grills sometimes and sometimes that kind of rattles. And there's a lot of electronics.
All of these have like digital sound processing inside them.

Speaker 12 And they can make bad decisions when tuning in that. They can make good decisions.
And so

Speaker 12 it's just how natural it sounds. But then as you get into a lot of the really tiny ones, you probably heard, they don't have any bass.
Yeah.

Speaker 12 So there's a tune by Audrey Nuna called Damn Right that starts with like

Speaker 12 and you play that on those little Bluetooth speakers and it's like the tune hasn't started. You're like, what happened to the tune? Because you cannot hear that bass.

Speaker 12 It just filters it out because it knows it can't do it.

Speaker 15 Right. So when you're playing a song, you're like, I feel like the song started five seconds ago, but I'm not hearing anything.

Speaker 12 It's probably your speaker. Yes.
So with a lot of these things, they just can't do it. And you know, there's one that's one of our top picks called the JBL Go4.
It's maybe $40 or $50.

Speaker 12 It's the size of,

Speaker 12 if anybody remembers cigarette packs,

Speaker 12 it's kind of like a thick cigarette pack, but they come in cute colors. You could probably throw it across the room and it wouldn't break.
And you could dunk it in a meter of water and it won't break.

Speaker 12 And it actually sounds for, you know, classical jazz. You know, I put on my jazz stuff in the morning and it sounds good.
I listen to it all the time.

Speaker 12 And a lot of wirecutter staffers have bought that same speaker and love it. But then you get into the bigger ones.
And I think we have like a $100 pick. It's got the Fender logo on it.

Speaker 12 You know, like the people that make the guitars and the guitar amps yeah it's actually made by a german company called toy fold t-e-u-f-e-l and it sounds really good it's actually got some bass you can play hip-hop stuff on it or something and it's not going to shake your floor but you won't feel like you're missing the music and it sounds really clean i think that most people just use one Bluetooth speaker at a time, but you told us something when we were preparing for this episode that surprised and delighted me that you can actually pair Bluetooth speakers, which I later that day told my husband.

Speaker 13 And we did it. We did it with our budget pick from Tribbit.
And it was great. Tell us more.
How do you know if you can pair Bluetooth speakers?

Speaker 12 Almost all of the ones made in the last four or five years can be paired. That's if you have the same speaker from the same company.
There's usually a button on it that allows you to pair it.

Speaker 12 And you have to look in the manual because they all pair a little differently. Some of them you have to go into an app to pair it.
You compare them for stereo so you get like a bigger sound.

Speaker 12 Some of them you compare them in mono. So they both have the same sound.
So you can put one in another room.

Speaker 12 I like to have sound on my back patio and sound in my kitchen, which is, you know, right next to my back patio.

Speaker 13 And for stereo sound, what would be the difference in what I would hear if I paired these speakers in stereo versus mono?

Speaker 12 So stereo came out in the late 50s. And it...
you know, you have a separate left speaker and a right speaker.

Speaker 12 And so the music producers will pan some of the sounds to the left and some of the sounds to the right. Usually the vocals will be in the middle and you might put the guitar a little to the left.

Speaker 12 And if you have a drum kit, you might kind of spread it from left to right.

Speaker 12 So it sounds more like a drum, a full set of drums in front of you rather than just a bunch of drums kind of crammed into one little tight space. So it sounds more like an actual band on stage.

Speaker 12 And mono, everything comes out of one speaker. And so it's the same.
Even if you have two speakers paired, it's the same, you know, in mono. It's the same sound coming out of both speakers.

Speaker 12 And it's fine. It's not like you're going to suddenly hate whatever band you like because they're in mono.

Speaker 12 But if you want a big, more exciting, more spacious sound, you're going to want stereo. And that's one thing that one Bluetooth speaker can't give you.

Speaker 12 So you pair the two in stereo and you put them six feet apart. And you put yourself in between the two.
So you're kind of getting an equal balance of the two.

Speaker 12 And then you get this sort of big enveloping sound. If you're in the right place, it sounds like there's a band in the room.

Speaker 15 We've covered a solid Bluetooth speaker situation.

Speaker 15 What happens if you want to graduate beyond that? What do you suggest is the next step up?

Speaker 12 The computer speakers that we have, they range from little things that you might just plug into your laptop to get louder sound out of your laptop

Speaker 12 to things that you would actually use for sort of low-end music production. So a little bit more serious of a speaker.
But usually those will have amplifiers.

Speaker 12 Well, I think they all have amplifiers built in, all the ones that we pick now. And so you plug them into your computer, you Bluetooth into them from your phone.

Speaker 12 Some of them you can hook up a record player. Those will have usually like a separate...
woofer for the bass and then a tweeter for the high frequencies.

Speaker 12 So they'll sound clearer in the, you know, cymbals and acoustic guitars and voices will sound clearer.

Speaker 12 And, but then those kind of low frequency, you know, boom, boom, boom things will start to sound a lot fuller and more satisfying.

Speaker 12 And those of us who do brand concealed audio tests have a saying, bass wins.

Speaker 12 If your product has more bass, it's probably going to win. If your product's bass deficient, it's probably going to lose.

Speaker 13 Why is that?

Speaker 12 People like bass. That's fine.

Speaker 12 I mean, to a point, I don't like it when I'm hearing a lot of bass from my neighbors or when I hear one car going down the road with loud bass, but people like bass because it's kind of visceral, kind of gets you moving a little bit.

Speaker 12 Nobody dances to, you know, a violin. I guess you could, technically.
You know, the bass is what gives you the pulse and the rhythm of the tune. So if you don't have any bass,

Speaker 12 you kind of are missing a big, giant chunk of the tune.

Speaker 15 Okay, so we've talked about the basic Bluetooth, and now we've talked about a little bit more complicated speakers. Are wired speakers the next step up the classic two-speaker system?

Speaker 15 And if so, why would somebody choose to do that to themselves?

Speaker 12 It will sound better. As they say, you will hear what the artist intended because every record that you've heard was mixed on two stereo speakers like that.

Speaker 12 And they can be wireless in terms of Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. They all plug into the wall.

Speaker 12 In most cases, you'll have a wire connecting the two speakers. You may have an amplifier for them.
There's all sorts of different configurations.

Speaker 12 But generally speaking, that is going to be the best sound and it's going to be, you know, what the artist intended. For average use, you can buy our bookshelf speaker picks.

Speaker 12 So we have a Polk in there. I think it's $2.30 a pair.
They sound really, really, really good.

Speaker 15 I want to talk about the amps a little bit more because it's a word that just keeps popping up. And a lot of people may not really know what an amp is or what it does.

Speaker 15 Can you just explain what steroid amps are, what they do, and why people will probably need one for a two-speaker system?

Speaker 12 Basically, basically what an amplifier does is you know the signal that comes out of your bluetooth from your phone or maybe your record player or maybe you have a cd player those are kind of coming back any of those signals you know it's it's like really kind of low voltage it's a it's like a volt or something it's like not much like really weak and it's enough maybe to drive a set of headphones but it's not enough to push speakers back and forth you know you got a big cone you got to move back and forth and you got to move a lot of air as they say so

Speaker 12 the amplifier just basically boosts that signal that comes out of whatever your source is, your record player or your phone or whatever.

Speaker 12 And so it boosts it to the point where it can drive a set of speakers. But with normal speakers like those pulks I talked about, any amp will drive those.

Speaker 12 And you can buy a $20, $30 amp off Amazon and it will drive those and actually sound okay.

Speaker 13 Okay, Brent, I just want to pause for a moment because we've talked about a lot of different types of speakers and it would just help me personally to be able to run through the options.

Speaker 13 So if you are wanting to just kind of dip your toes into getting like a basic sound system, the most affordable and accessible option would be to start at a Bluetooth speaker.

Speaker 13 You could get one, you could get two if you want to pair them and do stereo sound. Okay.

Speaker 13 Next, go for two speakers.

Speaker 13 And you have a couple of options there. You could go with small computer speakers, which have a built-in amp.
So you don't have to buy an extra amp. They're pretty affordable.
They sound pretty good.

Speaker 13 If you want to to go up from there, you would get bigger bookshelf speakers. And some of those have an amp built in, and some you have to buy a separate amp, right?

Speaker 12 Right. If you're more of a serious music listener, I would definitely go with the two speakers absolutely positively.
But any of the two speaker options is going to be good for you.

Speaker 15 We're going to take a quick break. And then when we come back, we'll talk about the most common mistakes people make with their audio equipment.

Speaker 12 Be right back.

Speaker 1 The Wirecutter Show is supported by Rocket Mortgage.

Speaker 3 Your home is an active investment, not a passive one.

Speaker 4 And with Rocket Mortgage, you can put your home equity to work right away. When you unlock your home equity, you unlock new doors for your family.

Speaker 7 renovations, extensions, even buying your next property.

Speaker 9 Get started today with smarter tools and guidance from real mortgage experts.

Speaker 2 Find out how at rocketmortgage.com.

Speaker 10 Rocket Mortgage LLC, licensed in 50 states, NMLS Consumer Access.org 3030.

Speaker 16 Wayfair loves fall. The crisp air, the cool nights, and of course, the seasonal lattes.

Speaker 16 And as your trusted destination for all things home, Wayfair's got everything you need to cozify your space, from comfy recliners to warm bedding and autumn decor.

Speaker 16 Wayfair even has espresso makers, so you can make that latte at home.

Speaker 6 You know the one.

Speaker 16 Head to Wayfair.com today to shop curated collections of easy, affordable fall updates. That's w-a-y-f-a-ir-r.com.
Wayfair, every style, every home.

Speaker 19 Paul Mescall and Josh O'Connor star in the history of sound, a sweeping and tender romance that spans decades and continents.

Speaker 19 In 1917, Boston, a chance encounter in a piano bar leads two students to a folk song collecting trip through the backwoods of Maine and an ensuing love affair that will change both their lives forever.

Speaker 19 In Select Theaters September 12th and Theaters Everywhere September 19th, visit movie.com slash historyofsound to get tickets. That's mu B I.com slash historyofsound.

Speaker 13 Welcome back. This episode, we're talking all about speakers and the things you can do to upgrade the audio equipment in your home.

Speaker 13 So Brent, you mentioned earlier we were talking about how you can really jump up in quality of sound when you get two speakers, especially if you're getting these wired speakers.

Speaker 13 Maybe they're either computer speakers or bookshelf speakers, these larger ones. I am personally kind of intimidated by shopping for speakers.
It kind of my brain shuts off a little bit.

Speaker 13 But I am curious, we talked a little bit about price before, but what do you think people should expect to pay to get something good in the category of wired speakers?

Speaker 12 Okay, those Polk ones.

Speaker 13 The Polk ones you mentioned earlier.

Speaker 12 Those are 230 a pair. And then you'll need an amp, but you know, almost any amp will work.
We have a budget pick, though, from a company called MICA M-I-C-C-A.

Speaker 12 I think those are about 100 a pair. And I was just using them the other day with the Wim amplifier.
And I was just like, oh, these things sound really good.

Speaker 12 I was listening to one of my own recordings, too. So I know what it's supposed to sound like.
And they are shockingly good. So you can do that if you want.

Speaker 12 I think the Polks are a better place to start. They're going to have more bass, but I would recommend going up to $200 or $300 for your amp.
And then you're up to $500.

Speaker 12 Okay. That seems reasonable.

Speaker 13 Brent, where does something like Sonos fit into this world of speakers? Is it like a computer speaker? Is it something else entirely?

Speaker 12 It's something else entirely. They kind of have the whole category of Wi-Fi speakers to themselves.
Lots of other speakers can do that, but they are the ones who really pioneered it.

Speaker 12 What the Wi-Fi does for you is you can stream music into lots of different rooms of a house.

Speaker 12 You can put different different Sonos speakers in different parts of your house and they all synchronize, so they all sound good.

Speaker 12 And the Sonos speakers themselves are actually, by and large, really good speakers.

Speaker 13 Everyone I know who has a Sonos in the last couple of years has done nothing but complain about their Sonos. Like they like the sound of it, but the app seems to be pretty glitchy.

Speaker 13 There seems to have been some quality control issues over the last year or so. What are some other options in this category?

Speaker 13 Do you have to go with Sonos or if you want this sort of like wireless experience where you can have the speakers all over the house, they're all connected.

Speaker 13 Maybe you have one that you can take outside. Is there another option out there besides Sonos?

Speaker 12 Absolutely. There's Apple AirPlay 2, which lets you do more or less the same thing.
There's Google Chromecast, which lets you do more or less the same thing.

Speaker 12 Apple AirPlay 2 and Google Chromecast are available in a wide variety of speakers from different brands, which Sonos, you know, is not.

Speaker 12 The Amazon Alexa speakers can do the multi-room thing too.

Speaker 12 You know, you can go buy those things for 40 bucks a pop or something like that, 50 bucks a pop, and you can sprinkle, you know, six of them around your house for almost nothing, and they'll all talk to each other, and their app is pretty easy to use.

Speaker 14 And so for these streamers, Sonos, even Alexa, I apologize for anyone listening on a speaker.

Speaker 14 Are you going to get the option of listening to music in mono and in stereo for all of those?

Speaker 12 Yes. So you can pair those.
So you can say, okay, I want one in my bedroom and one in my kitchen kitchen or whatever, right?

Speaker 12 Or you can say, I want two in my bedroom so I can sit in my bed and listen to stereo and just one in the kitchen. And you can actually configure them all within the apps.

Speaker 12 You know, there's, you know, Apple has their own thing and different companies like, say, a JBL or a Bowers and Wilkins or somebody will have their own app that lets you configure everything.

Speaker 14 So Brent, these two terms, Bluetooth speakers and wireless speakers. Talk about the differences and what do we actually mean?

Speaker 12 So Bluetooth is a wireless technology. I think we've all, you know, Bluetooth our phone into our earbuds or into our car or something, and you don't have a wire connecting them.

Speaker 12 There are other wireless technologies like Wi-Fi-based technologies like Sonos,

Speaker 12 where

Speaker 12 the audio device is streaming wirelessly from your home network or maybe from your phone or your iPad or whatever.

Speaker 12 People also sometimes talk about wireless speakers as speakers that don't have any wires attached to them at all.

Speaker 12 A stereo pair of speakers probably has a wire connecting them so they can kind of talk to each other. And then they have probably a wire somewhere that plugs them into the wall for power.

Speaker 12 So the only thing that's purely wireless is a portable Bluetooth speaker. There are no wires.

Speaker 12 And then once you go beyond that, you're going to be running into wires. Sorry.

Speaker 14 All Bluetooth is wireless, but not all wireless is referring to Bluetooth.

Speaker 12 Fair? Correct.

Speaker 14 What are the functional differences between connectivity via Bluetooth versus connectivity via Wi-Fi?

Speaker 12 Wi-Fi requires an app. Bluetooth does not.
So Wi-Fi is going to be more complicated, although usually it's not that bad.

Speaker 14 But more finicky.

Speaker 13 And if your network goes down, you can't use it.

Speaker 12 Yeah.

Speaker 14 I'm curious, what is the most common mistake you see people making with their audio equipment in general?

Speaker 12 They don't pay attention to where they put the speakers. There's two things you got to worry about with speakers.

Speaker 12 The first thing is the closer the speaker is to a wall or a desk or a floor or, you know, especially in a corner, the more it's going to reinforce all of the sound, especially the bass.

Speaker 12 So when you push speakers up against a wall, there's going to be a lot more bass.

Speaker 12 And that might be good. It might be bad.
Big speaker, if you go up against the wall, it's probably going to sound really boomy.

Speaker 12 With the little speaker, like these little Bluetooth speakers, these little portables, they probably will sound better up against the wall. So you have that variable right there.

Speaker 12 So the more bass you want, move it closer to the wall. Also, With stereo, you need to have left and right to get it to work.

Speaker 12 And your head needs to be about the same distance from from both speakers for it to work right

Speaker 12 and I've seen a lot of people have stereos

Speaker 12 where they put the left speaker on top of the right speaker oh

Speaker 12 because it just looks so damn cool you really need to put the stereo speakers equidistant from your ears you know and also a lot of people will put the stereo speakers put one kind of in the right place and they'll put one like on a different wall And that's going to sound not

Speaker 12 good. What we look for is what we call a center image.
So if your head is the same distance between those two speakers, it's going to sound like there's a singer coming from between the speakers.

Speaker 12 We call that imaging. It's actually awesome once you hear it.
But if you don't have your speakers placed right, you will not hear it.

Speaker 14 The base and the treble knobs on

Speaker 14 what am I meant to be doing with these?

Speaker 14 Because I noodle around with them based on the song and like what I'm trying to get out of it. But I really don't think that that is what I'm meant to be doing.

Speaker 12 Okay.

Speaker 14 Help me.

Speaker 12 Oh boy, this is such a good question. I mean, there's the classic example of you get in a rental car and you turn on the stereo and you find that the bass and treble are both turned all the way up.

Speaker 12 That's a common mistake people make. Generally, you should start with the bass and treble controls centered.
And that's usually going to be what we call flat response.

Speaker 12 In other words, you're not boosting anything. You're not cutting anything.
It should sound the most natural. So I normally recommend that people just leave those centered all the time.

Speaker 12 However, if you have speakers that maybe don't have quite enough bass, you can boost the bass a little bit. If you boost the bass too much, it's probably going to distort.

Speaker 12 But you can boost the bass a little bit. Or maybe your speakers sound too boomy, you turn the bass down a little bit.

Speaker 12 Or maybe they sound kind of dull as if someone's got like a, you know, singing through a blanket. You can boost the treble a little bit.

Speaker 13 And that'll just make it sound kind of like almost sharper or something.

Speaker 12 Yeah, sharper. That's a good word.

Speaker 13 So my question is, how do you turn the treble and the bass down on your neighbor's speakers and get too loud?

Speaker 14 Is there any technology you're excited about? Any emerging stuff that you're intrigued by?

Speaker 12 Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. There's a new thing coming out called Aura Cast, and it's kind of a subset of Bluetooth.

Speaker 12 So what AuraCast lets you do is you can stream, you know, normally with your phone, you can stream to one or maybe two Bluetooth speakers. With this, you can

Speaker 12 stream to

Speaker 12 an unlimited number as long as they're within range of what we call the host speaker. So you stream from your phone to the host speaker.
Then you can put 10, 50, 100.

Speaker 12 Theoretically, they can be of all different brands. So you don't have to match them.
And also it works with headphones.

Speaker 13 Oh, so you could have, like, for my kids, for instance, I am always annoyed because they each have Bluetooth headphones and I want them to be able to listen to the same music.

Speaker 13 We have to connect a separate phone to each headphone and that's annoying. So you want to pair, I'd love to be able to have them listen to the same like songs on the, on both of their headphones.

Speaker 12 It's happening and I have experimented with it some, but it's still going to be at a primitive stage for I think another year, but then more people will have it.

Speaker 12 And I think it's going to be in every hearing aid in another probably two years. All the wireless earbuds, it'll probably be in those in two years, three years.

Speaker 12 It's going to be in every Bluetooth speaker in another

Speaker 12 probably two, three years.

Speaker 13 Okay, Brent. So sometimes we like to do a really quick-paced lightning round at the end of our episodes to just get in those last questions.

Speaker 12 So I don't want you to overthink any of these.

Speaker 13 Just say what comes to your mind.

Speaker 13 Indoor concert or outdoor music festival.

Speaker 12 So hard, but I'm a jazz guy, so indoor.

Speaker 13 Subwoofer, essential or overhyped?

Speaker 12 Essential if you are watching movies or you're into hip-hop, maybe heavy rock, EDM, stuff like that.

Speaker 13 Which sounds better, CD or vinyl?

Speaker 12 Oh, you're going to get me in so much trouble here.

Speaker 12 You know,

Speaker 12 CD. I mean, I don't listen.
I listen to vinyl sometimes because it's fun, but I listen to digital. I listen to, you know, MP3s a lot.

Speaker 13 Oh, I think this was a very controversial answer, but we'll take it. All right.

Speaker 13 The one speaker brand you wish more people knew about.

Speaker 12 Mika, the one I talked about, M-I-C-C-A. I can't say they're all great, but that one that we have, oh, God, it's so good and it's so cheap.

Speaker 13 Your Desert Island album.

Speaker 12 The Yes album by the 70s Progressive Rock Group, Yes.

Speaker 15 Before we wrap, we usually ask our guests one final question. What's the last thing you bought that you've really loved?

Speaker 12 The wire cutter top pick. for screwdrivers.

Speaker 12 It is really fabulous. It has like a whole bunch of bits built into it.

Speaker 12 So like every weird screw that you might want to access, you can pull the bit out, and it's really like well-built, like, you can get a lot of torque and really get the screw in tight.

Speaker 12 I'm building a new deck on my home right now, and the screwdriver is coming in very, very, very handy.

Speaker 14 Brent, thank you so much for joining us. This was really, really fun.

Speaker 12 Well, thanks for having me on. Thanks for watching.
It's been great.

Speaker 13 Speakers, Brent, so much information. He still loves Brent.

Speaker 13 I feel like I was the one lagging in this conversation.

Speaker 13 You two were like ahead with Brent, and I was kind of like behind trying to like pick up the pieces and figure out all the details because I'm not an audiophile.

Speaker 15 No, but you enjoy good music, good sound, and you got there.

Speaker 13 I do. I just want someone else to think about it for me.

Speaker 14 Well, I think Brent is that person. What did you take away from this?

Speaker 13 So I really love his tip about pairing Bluetooth speakers. That really blew my mind.
So that was very cool.

Speaker 13 And I will continue to pair my Bluetooth speakers at home to create stereo sound, which now I understand what that means.

Speaker 12 They got deep.

Speaker 14 I love that.

Speaker 14 For me, I am very grateful for the final explanation of the differences between connectivity via Bluetooth and via Wi-Fi and why you might opt for a speaker system that could connect via Bluetooth, maybe over Wi-Fi, because Wi-Fi, as we know, can be a little fiddly.

Speaker 14 Yeah.

Speaker 14 And so Bluetooth, at least right now, is more reliable in that sense. So I loved that.
I also loved that. Brent had the final word on the song to listen to to check whether your speakers are great.

Speaker 13 Tracy Chapman, Fast Car.

Speaker 14 That song truly can do anything.

Speaker 15 Yeah. I think my takeaway is that, you know, honestly, I got into stereo systems and speakers because of my dad.
He really like taught me what good sound can be.

Speaker 15 But I think that I relied a little bit too much on him to like tell me what these things do.

Speaker 15 So I'm going to go back and I'm going to actually read the manuals for all the devices that I have and see what I've been missing out on.

Speaker 12 Yeah, a whole world will open up probably. Yeah.

Speaker 14 Also, good if you are looking to cure insomnia.

Speaker 12 Sure.

Speaker 12 Yeah.

Speaker 14 Well, if you want to find out more about wire cutters coverage, any of Brent's reporting, or if you want to check out the products we recommended today, check out our website or you can find a link in the show notes.

Speaker 14 That is it for us. Christine, Kyra, my friends.
See you next week. Bye-bye.
Peace.

Speaker 13 The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by Rosie Guerin and produced by Abigail Keel. Engineering support from Mattie Mazziello and Nick Pittman.
Today's episode was mixed by Katherine Anderson.

Speaker 13 Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Alicia Ba Yitoupe, and Diane Wong. Wirecutter's deputy publisher and general manager is Cliff Levy.
Ben Fruman is Wirecutter's editor-in-chief.

Speaker 13 I'm Christine Syr-Clissette.

Speaker 12 I'm Kyra Blackwell.

Speaker 14 And I'm Rosie Guerin.

Speaker 13 Thanks for listening.

Speaker 12 Nobody dances to, you know, a violin. I guess you could, technically.
I think they did on the Titanic, right? In that movie. But that's all they had to work with.
And look what happened to them.

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